Felt Coin Purse

There seem to be owls everywhere this year.

But my heart was set on another forest animal: Beautiful foxes! I have been working on the idea of incorporating a fox into a grown-up purse for a while and finally got to make them this weekend.

I thought making a foxy zippered coin purse would be fun and useful, as I had some left over merino wool and cashmere blend fabric. I cut my wool fabric into rectangles, allowing 1 inch either side for seams.

I made the foxes using wool blend felt, cut into shapes and stitched directly onto the main fabric.

Initially, I attached fusible interfacing (bondaweb) to the felt, but found it showed when I placed the fox in the black background.

Using applique paper was also a failure. Ironing the paper on gave me a great stiff felt which made very easy cutting the small shapes. But when it was time to peel the paper off and be left with a sticky side, it would not come off, it just ripped the felt. Again placing the shape with the paper on the purse, showed the white edges of the paper and made a crinkly noise.

Finally, I just lay the felt on. I realised I should have bought the top quality 100% wool felt then rather than the wool blend, as the 100% wool is thicker and would need no backing. But these are kinda prototypes!

When it is time to stitch the applique shapes for the fox, it is a good idea to number the pieces in the order they need to go on. Here the brown face was first, followed by the white parts, followed by the black nose and ear insets. I stitched the eyes setting the machine stitch width and length to zero and slightly pulled the fabric to make thicker eyes. For the second coin purse, I used this setting to make the feet of the fox and his nose too.

My stitching was made with zig zag. The straight line would have looked more neat but I was not able to get really close to the edge of the tiny shapes. I would not recommend laying the stitches thick like I did, as they shine in the light and detract from the warmth of the felt. I figured out the zig zag set at number 2 both for length and width would have worked best.

I then made the purse by attaching an 8 inch zipper and lining.

It was my first attempt in sewing home made applique and there is definitely lots of room for improvement..but I love them!

Hope you do too. :)